Toronto Public Library members can now borrow current issues of over 300 magazines through a newly-announced partnership with Zinio.
Zinio is a popular magazine platform that is available on iOS, Android and Windows Phone and BlackBerry 10, in both smartphone and tablet formats. The two companies announced the partnership together, claiming that “E-magazines are extremely popular and we are happy to meet customer demand for new digital content available anywhere and anytime on our users’ favourite devices.”
Canadians currently have access to magazine subscriptions from a variety of channels, including Google Play and iTunes, but Zinio users get free access to publications like The Economist, Us Weekly, National Geographic and Esquire, to name a few.
Getting the magazines is fairly simple, though they’ll have to be “checked out” using TPL’s white label kiosk, powered by RBDigital. Existing Zinio users must sign up for a new account, but by using the same email the two databases — existing Zinio purchases and the new TPL check-outs — can be consolidated into one library. There’s a helpful FAQ for those who get lost, too.
The program generously allows users to hold on to the magazines indefinitely, but does not give access (at this point) to any of their back catalogues. This solution may suit Google Play users who are waiting to be able to access existing print subscriptions on their phones and tablets without paying twice.
[source]TPL[/source]
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